[Trivia] Lines with the MOST fare evasion

[ForTheLoveOf]

The 3 areas I work with massive amounts are out of Liverpool to runcorn/Hartford/winsford, Stafford to rugeley/Lichfield and also to Penkridge and Stone and also Tamworth-atherstone/Nuneaton.
So many pay when challenged it's unbelievable and also the no money/fell asleep instantly/ blocked card/ insert any excuse can think of brigade train after train after train.

Why are there never any RPIs onboard trains then? The network there is quite spread out over a number of interconnected lines, so whilst station blocks are possible (and done occassionally), onboard RPIs would surely be able to have a field day in Penalty Fares or MG11s according to what you're saying.

 

[pompeyfan]

Another vote for the Netley line from me for people who chance it, although the majority seem to pay when challenged.

In terms of sheer volume of fare evaders the line between New Milton and Poole might not be that high, but they are a completely different level of scrote-yness. The ones that do intentionally evade are absolutely vile, not helped by the drug recovery centre at Pokesdown.

Interesting that Haslemere - Guildford has been mentioned too, I don’t think it’s that bad. The issues generally crop up in the opposite direction towards Petersfield from experience. The 2 stop hop to Liphook or Liss, not helped by SWR running longer formations since the 707s were introduced.

 

[greaterwest]

Interesting that Haslemere - Guildford has been mentioned too, I don’t think it’s that bad.

It tends to be on services that stop at the smaller stations, also Godalming. You don't often see problems on services that are non stop from Haslemere to Guildford, especially now Haslemere's barriers are in use all day.

I've heard of guards being assaulted along that line and some of the ones that get on the train at Farncombe are just vile. They're also the ones responsible for using T keys to open panels and play unsavoury music down the train's PA system, as well as the usual foul language.

That being said, another vote for the Netley line from me.

 

[scrapy]

If the Disputes and Prosecutions forum is anything to by, nobody has bought a ticket in the Cardiff area in the last dozen years or so

Going back 20 years, Lancaster-Preston was very prone to fare evasion - short journey, long trains. I think there are barriers at Preston now, and more RPIs - not sure if that's fixed it??

No automatic barriers and the subway is rarely checked except the ramp to 3/4 in the am peak and this can be bypassed by the lifts. I have travelled quite regularly between Warrington and Carlisle and never had ticket checked between Warrington and Lancaster. The crew change at Preston doesn't help.

Warrington and Wigan only have revenue blocks once in a blue moon and never seen one at Lancaster. Even when there is a block you only see people being sold a ticket, details only taken if no means to pay.

 

[Kite159]

I wonder how bad evasion is with C2C services & Greater Anglia services with folk changing at Stratford & West Ham, as the platforms have card readers so probably all too easy for someone travelling to a station without barriers to use LU to reach Stratford/West Ham, touch out before boarding the mainline service back home.

Likewise when the readers at Clapham Junction were standard readers which allowed folk to start/end their journey when remaining on the LO platforms before jumping on a SWR or Southern service if their home station didn't have barriers.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Birchwood-warrington. They would look for the flashing light to indicate where the guard was and pile on at the opposite carriage or the other set when a 6 car. It was a relatively safe bet if the guard was at the GOP they were working forward so jumping on the back carriage usually avoided being ticketed

 

[Kite159]

Birchwood-warrington. They would look for the flashing light to indicate where the guard was and pile on at the opposite carriage or the other set when a 6 car. It was a relatively safe bet if the guard was at the GOP they were working forward so jumping on the back carriage usually avoided being ticketed

Or these days when Northern throw out a pair of units where one isn't gangwayed and hence the guard has to remain in the rear unit, all the dodgers board the front unit (only to run into an assistant ticket examiner [or whatever they are called on Northern] )

Probably the same elsewhere where operators have non gangwayed stock and the guard has to remain in the rear unit. I'm thinking Scotrail Glasgow to Edinburgh services with folk boarding at Polmont/Linlithgow and heading towards Falkirk

 

[sd0733]

Why are there never any RPIs onboard trains then? The network there is quite spread out over a number of interconnected lines, so whilst station blocks are possible (and done occassionally), onboard RPIs would surely be able to have a field day in Penalty Fares or MG11s according to what you're saying.

We are continuously asking for some assistance from the RPIs particularly on the Trent Valley but unfortunately with the scale of the problem they need more staff to carry it out meaningfully than are currently available.

 

[mirodo]

Croydon Tramlink is another freebie for most people.

Not in my experience - on-board checks are fairly frequent.

 

[Syllopsium]

It's been happening all the two years I've been living in Sheffield. The Penistone services do sometimes have both a guard and a conductor onboard which helps them a lot doing revenue.

The whole Northern network after 6pm away from the large stations with barriers is wide-open to those wanting a free ride.

You say that, but it's certainly not always the case on the Blackpool North line going north of Manchester.

Until recently I also would have said that there were never ticket inspections on the last Friday train either, but on the one occasion a friend was travelling to my station our tickets were inspected.

 

[sannox]

It's nothing to do with the operation of the train they are not checking tickets either way.

Companies like Southeastern could do with staff whose primary role is to check tickets, like they have up in Glasgow.

I agree, it is always a surprise to me being used to the Glasgow network, how infrequent tickets are checked in other areas.

That said Glasgow is not perfect and you still see a number of people chancing it. There are some DOO services which are truly driver only, but sometimes you'll find a TE won't come through on a line where they don't anticipate many passengers being picked up en route. For example if you board at an intermediate stop on the Paisley Canal line heading to Paisley- they just anticipate everyone got on at Glasgow and went through a barrier. Same on guard services to Barrhead/Maryhill.

 

[HowardGWR]

There is a lot of unsupported anecdote here. I would have thought that any TOC that wanted to know how much likely evasion there is on any line would simply mount a random full revenue block with a posse of RPIs, carefully noting the numbers of pax and the % having to cough up and the number with no funds. They could then decide whether a higher level of checking is net revenue-justified or not. On my lines (LSWR Salisbury to Exeter and Poole to Weymouth) I don't get an impression of fraud as my tickets are always, but always, checked by the conductor, in my experience. He or she does call 'any tickets from (last station)' so some may cower down in the seat. The conductors seem to have good memory though. Perhaps rush hour packed trains offer more possibilities for fraud.
The OP entitled this TRIVIA but I don't see anything trivial about it at all!

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

There is a lot of unsupported anecdote here. I would have thought that any TOC that wanted to know how much likely evasion there is on any line would simply mount a random full revenue block with a posse of RPIs, carefully noting the numbers of pax and the % having to cough up and the number with no funds. They could then decide whether a higher level of checking is net revenue supportable or not. On my lines (LSWR Salisbury to Exeter and Poole to Weymouth) I don't get an impression of fraud as my tickets are always, but always, checked by the conductor, in my experience. He or she does call 'any tickets from (last station)' so some may cower down in the seat. The conductors seem to have good memory though. Perhaps rush hour packed trains offer more possibilities for fraud.

Unfortunately it's very difficult to get a true figure. As soon as you start a block, word will spread on social media and a lot of people will either avoid the station entirely, or buy a ticket when they normally wouldn't. It's only the very first part of a block where you get true figures, and it's simply too small of a sample size to draw any kind of reliable figures from.

You also have to consider the fact that this means you can't get a true figure throughout the day, as you can't have a block going on for too long (otherwise the figures will not be a true representation of the problem).

It's similar to the election and referendum predictions. The result of your figures will depend on how and when you ask, and it's easy enough to massage the figures whichever way you like, really.

The only theoretical way of measuring it would to have a gang of plain-clothed inspectors large enough to check every single service at the same time, and not to open the doors until everyone's (and I mean everyone) ticket is checked. But that is ludicrously expensive and totally impractical, purely for the benefit of having some accurate evasion information. (Not to mention the fact that, any such operation would have to be so incredibly massive, and repeated a few times to do it across different times of day and days of the week, that inevitably some information about times/dates would leak, leading to evaders buying a ticket or not travelling).

 

[tsr]

The DLR and Tramlink, both the least-barriered systems in London, do have regular checks, and allegedly the DLR has long been the best-performing of all the TfL modes in terms of a low rate of fare evasion (apparently including the river services - though I still have basically no idea how anyone actually evades the fare on the boats, as they’re very clued-up on revenue).

Fare evasion tends to spike due to numerous factors, not all of which will be particularly obvious or even able to be numerically quantified. For example, Southeastern staff morale and therefore staff presence used to be pretty poor in places, but conductor and Rail Enforcement Officer mood and visibility seem to have both shot up in parallel, which has meant the company has generally done quite well over the last couple of years in matters of challenging those without tickets. The staff know what they’re doing and they’ve recently seemed quite motivated to tackle even the big problem areas. I think this will eventually reap considerable rewards for the company, and areas like their Metro routes will be less of a free-for-all. (And Tonbridge in the school run...) But I believe this isn’t actually making much of a dent in the stats as yet.

You also have the opposite, which are areas of downward decline which seem to be in a rather nasty spiral. Some of the GTR routes are now near enough 100% pay-when-challenged, with alarmingly regular reports of groups of fare evaders roaming what used to be perfectly pleasant Sussex railway lines, and it’s enough to completely wear out seasoned coppers on the rare days when they end up helping out. This isn’t just down to staff motivation though... indeed as someone posted, lines like Uckfield’s regularly get checked... it’s almost designed into the stations and environments around the stations by accident, and then also encouraged by a population which hasn’t been challenged to work out the consequences of moral values (or not) for themselves.

Between the two of these you get the routes like London Northwestern, where the company is starting to try tactics like staffing (or, rather, rostering staff for) all their ticket barriers all the time, and encouraging more revenue activity, because they do recognise that abusive fare evasion has increased and that everyone on the frontline needs a bit more encouragement and backup to even begin to sort it out. Fundamentally I don’t actually believe the south WCML is statistically that bad, but if the confidence isn’t yet there amongst the staff, people who think they can “get away with it” will start to take advantage of any weaknesses.

 

[Swanny200]

SE used to be bad in the 90's, Rochester was a pretty hard one to evade (I never did myself, this is from someone who I know did this on regular occasion) as they used to stand right at the archway at the exit doors so you couldn't get out without showing your ticket, however Gillingham was a lot easier, if you came in on platform one you walked up the stairs and they would stop you on the footbridge, the way round this was to tell them that you were in a rush and had to catch a train to Rainham, or Sittingbourne etc. and knowing that there was one due, if there was a queue they would let you on your way and then matey would just jump over the gate on platform 3. If you came in on platform 3 however and they were sitting at said gate waiting, they never put anyone on the footbridge to catch people coming out the gate and out the main entrance. I would imagine that has changed quite a bit now since the refurb they had a few years ago.

 

[matt_world2004]

The East Anglia lines were estimated to have 20% ticketless travel rates when taken over by LO.

 

[Bookd]

As my local line is SWR I am surprised by the apparent lack of control on South Eastern. Most SWR stations in the London area have barriers (although there are some exceptions); at Feltham for example these used to be often open in the evenings but they are generally now in use and staffed until about midnight, as are the entry lines at Waterloo which used to be open after about 10 p.m. This may have been a change of franchise requirement and if so it could perhaps be applied elsewhere.

 

[underbank]

Most of the Morecambe/Bare Lane/Lancaster riders seem to avoid paying. No barriers at any of those stations and the line is too short for the guard to realistically check/charge more than a handful of travellers, especially at peak times when he'd have trouble going through the train anyway due to standing passengers.

 

[HullRailMan]

Judging by the number of people that buy on board Beverley-Cottingham-Hull there must be a fair number trying to avoid paying as all three stations has ticket facilities. It’s a ten minute journey and many guards don’t bother checking, no barriers or checks at any of the stations.
The lack of barriers at Hull is said to be down to it being a TPE station but most of the fares missed are Northern.

 

[telstarbox]

A lot of SE Metro stations have multiple entrances so you'd either need barriers on each one (and staff accordingly) or to close an established entrance which wouldn't be popular.

For example, Ladywell has two platforms which both have level access from the side, as well as an older footbridge connecting the two. If you closed the down platform entrance you would lose the step-free access on that side.

Hither Green has three access points serving two different "sides" of that area, Petts Wood is similar, Greenwich has three (and the main one is via a Listed Building).

I wonder if the shift in demand from season tickets to PAYG will encourage weekday commuters to chance it at the weekends (which they wouldn't if they already had an annual ticket).

 

[philthetube]

Having travelled Preston/London , AM peak recently I would say their is a lot of free riding Preston Wigan/Warrington, the train I was on the TM collected half a dozen fares in each of the front two coaches and hadn't time to do the rest.

 

[philthetube]

I wonder what proportion of uncollected fares are due to not having an opportunity to pay, it happens to me often and I admit that I am not honest enough to offer the fare a few days later when the next opportunity to pay arises.

 

[bionic]

On the longer distance routes many people are only going one stop so they get on the train knowing full well that worst case scenario the guard will put them off at the station they were travelling to anyway.

 

[telstarbox]

Having travelled Preston/London , AM peak recently I would say their is a lot of free riding Preston Wigan/Warrington, the train I was on the TM collected half a dozen fares in each of the front two coaches and hadn't time to do the rest.

That's a good point - if the RPI takes a few minutes to write up the paperwork for one person, does that mean a few more people get away with it?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Having travelled Preston/London , AM peak recently I would say their is a lot of free riding Preston Wigan/Warrington, the train I was on the TM collected half a dozen fares in each of the front two coaches and hadn't time to do the rest.

Preston would be extremely hard to barrier due to its layout, so they are probably stuck with that.

 

[philthetube]

A blitz on the train and a few prosecutions would help.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A blitz on the train and a few prosecutions would help.

True. Though VT don't like prosecuting as it's not nicey nicey.

Having said what I did about Preston, with remote gateline monitoring you possibly could barrier it - you'd need 3 barrier lines, one outside the Fishergate Centre entrance/exit (2 gates, no wide gate needed as the bridge is stepped), one at the new car park entrance/exit and one across between the present booking office and the trainshed. You could then put say 2-3 TVMs by each of the non-ticket-office entrances. Closure of the Fishergate entrance would be extremely unpopular, it is by far the busiest.

 

[gimmea50anyday]

Some of the "unsupported anecdotes" come from front line staff with first hand experience

 

[KingJ]

Over a few years of living in SE London, I had my ticket checked onboard a Southeastern service just once. On the DLR on the other hand, I had it checked a few times a week and saw very few people getting caught for not having a valid fare.

On SE Mainline, the guards seem to do a check about 50% of the time but are more than happy to sell you a ticket onboard - i've yet to see anyone getting written up for fare evasion on the train itself. At stations however, Tonbridge regularly has anywhere from 5-10 RPIs in the peaks - catching out many schoolkids travelling from the nearby unbarriered stations. It is a shame that there seems to be no appetite for doing something similar in the metro, even just as a very random one off.

 

[Deepgreen]

Following on from the least fare evasion thread, which lines have the most fare evasion. I’ll nominate Sheffield to Meadowhall as a good start, no barriers, very rarely any ticket checks on the <10 min journey and if you are checked you can just buy one on board!

By definition - almost impossible to know the answer to the question, but speculation will be varied (and nothing wrong with that).